


1, 2, 3 (let's burn!)

by orphan_account



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, And space, Angst, Breakup, Falling Out of Love, Fluffy, Heartbreak, Lots of flowers, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, Metaphors, Not A Happy Ending, Side Yungi, Woosan, a little dramatic, and stuff about stars, breaking up, i listened to cherry wine while writing this, i mention junhee like once, i think, like a lot of spring, mentions of smoking, mentions of spring, slight sanhwa, small town, takes place in the 90s, weird descriptions, will have a little violence later
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:34:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25973722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “what does being in love feel like to you?”san still thinks that it feels like spring, when everything blooms towards the sun and a beautiful heat spreads softly over the entire world. it was in the april showers that kissed moth orchids and settled petrichor across the front lawns in the morning. many times, it felt like the high from alcohol, where you never cared about anything else but the next drink and just how far it would take you.it caused san’s chest to erupt and spill stars, causing his head to fill with the thought of seeing wooyoung again as longing made a home in his heart when he was gone.“i dunno. it’s...a lot.”...or, falling out of love should not have hurt this much.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 12
Kudos: 26





	1. let's only walk on flower trails

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lunecarree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunecarree/gifts), [ali2410](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ali2410/gifts).



> hello!! 
> 
> i was trying to take a break from writing for a little so i wrote another au. no the logic does not make sense but we rollin with it! she's been getting dusty in the drafts since last year whew
> 
> the context: i saw blue valentine once and think i know how breakups work hhh
> 
> this is gonna be super short (~15k) despite the number of chapters i promise it wont be as long as my others! i definitely could have made this into a one shot but i just thought making it into chapters would be easier to keep up ^-^
> 
> enjoy! and look at the tags before you read, please stay safe!!

_hello! before you read—_

_the names of the characters in this au have nothing to do with how they are in real life. i’ve made them into people who are farthest from the real ones, and are not an accurate representation of them! please do not take this seriously, it was meant for (hopefully!) your entertainment and for something for me to pass the time with! this is my third (fifth?? uh) angsty san centric au, i hope you enjoy it!_

_\- bette_

_p.s._ _whether you thought of 2! 3! by bts or the powerful end of the choruses of answer by ateez, they both have the same effect of making me want to set my heart on fire when thinking about this concept. i hope i pulled it off well enough for you to feel the same._

_p.p.s. to kiki and ali: i really hope you like this and that it doesn't disappoint you!! thank you for being moots with me ilu!! <33_

~☁~

Love meant all things beautiful to him, as cliche and sickening as it sounded. 

San found that, throughout his two years of being so painfully in love, that it had been something made up of the most alluring things on earth, of delicate white petals of roses, and the gentle breezes of June that carried the aroma of the sea through the sky. It was fragile, like it belonged framed in his favorite museum, something that grew lush in the corner of his mother’s garden under the windowsill, found in the pale radiance of the moon once the sun kissed it goodbye for the evening. It was like plush down comforters on a Sunday morning, the warmth of bonfires at night and the way dandelions floated like stars across the stratosphere when you blew them out with hope at the tip of your tongue. 

Love would dangle from the sky and brush his fingertips when he reached out to it like stars, and it lightly seared his skin but in a way that felt electric and wonderful at the underlying risk beneath his touch.

San found that, throughout his two years of being so _wonderfully_ and _riskily_ in love, that it had been made of Jung Wooyoung.

He was the most perfect craving, where his fingertips would drag addiction across his skin and his lips would taste like temptation and chance as they left pretty sapphires over his delicate skin, and burning heat in the pit of his core. He was the most perfect liberation, in the way he would hold San like he was made up of diamond studded suns, as if his heart was glass, in the way he would speak to him as if to toss pennies to him and make a wish upon his shooting stars.

Wooyoung was everything San had ever wanted. 

He felt, more often than not, nearly too much whenever he would look at him a certain way, kiss him a certain way, love him in this _certain way_ that made San feel on top of the world. He was always floating above the moon with Wooyoung, always had his wrists tied to too many balloons and he would let his feet drag across the atmosphere, head too much in the universe created by Wooyoung’s fantasies and fairytales to really mind.

Especially at night, when the twilight had exposed the locked gates of the city and left the keys in their hands. They could take on anything at night, cloaked in the moon and running wild with the risk of just _being_ that sparked full fuses in him.

It was tough to be so wildly in love with Wooyoung from the outside. But as long as the right people knew about it and the right people ignored them, they were okay.

They were always okay together.

Tonight, San found himself sitting on the ledge of the rooftop of his apartment complex, being the only college kid in his neighborhood who was still remotely near his apartment on a dwindling Friday night. He had been excited, the thought of taking over the world with Wooyoung, just for tonight, made him ignite like the matchstick rip that sets the first couple of leaves ablaze before ravishing forests. And he knew he would burn until the sun rose again.

Soft breezes that the night gifted with it were an emollient to his heated skin as he sat and waited. 

There was a jitter in him as he quickly tapped his thumbs together, looking down at the empty road to enter his neighborhood, shrouded in pitch darkness, save for the few street lamps speckling the sidewalks tonight and blushing a flickering amber light over the cracks in the pavement.

“Come on, Woo. Come on.” 

San lets his eyes wander into the city so close yet so far away from him, able to faintly see the shingles on rooftops from where he sat atop his own, able to see the welcoming hands of the colorful city lights past the freeway and the addictive tablet of freedom dissolving right on his tongue.

They were summer skies in the heart of August, passionate and hot, and they went _so fast,_ unrelenting and unstoppable and San always felt that Wooyoung revved him up enough for him to see just how much he’s changed since meeting him.

He used to hate going out, meeting new people, and always felt the world was stuck in frigid winter, even when the end of May first approached, or when the season bled into August. He may have liked himself a bit more because of him, may have seen brighter skies and noticed just how beautiful flowers in bloom were during the day.

Wooyoung felt just like spring.

It’s the headlights of Wooyoung’s 1965 Lincoln Continental that cruise towards him that get his heart to race first, beating over the streets and causing the pavement to vibrate beneath him, the yellow paint to wave and the trees to split as Wooyoung’s car parts, inches closer to him and makes his heart beat right out of his chest. 

He clamors off of his roof, careful not to slip in his worn white converse, and takes the stairs two at a time, his eagerness cloaking over his shoulders as the car stops right in front of his apartment. 

The headlights shut off, and as San runs to the opening car door, the moon rushing with him and the stars falling over his head in buckets, he meets him, feels the wind blow through his bones as he snakes his arms around his waist and lifts him up into the night sky, feels the planets sat over his cheeks as Wooyoung spins him in the middle of the parking lot. 

It felt as if he was supposed to, like San belonged pressed against him and Wooyoung was made for caging him in his arms like precious, valuable gems. 

He always felt so priceless with him. Always, always, always.

And when Wooyoung kisses him for the first time tonight, he feels tides rush in his chest, waves crashing on his sunkissed shores as he holds his face in his hand, his lips trickling love into him as they dragged across his own, soft like satin rose petals. The way he was able to lead him into the sun, giving him everything in just the way he felt like stars under his skin, in the way he was so open with him, San can’t put his finger on just how Wooyoung does it.

Maybe he never really wanted to know. Maybe he thought that keeping it a secret would be best. 

Wooyoung had always been magic like that.

San smiles once Wooyoung pulls back to press his lips to his forehead, once, then twice, like butterfly wings, and he hides his face in his neck, hiding from the way his heart was inflating, hiding from how the constellations above them could tell everyone about what they were doing, hiding from his realities and taking refuge in the whims Wooyoung’s made for him, just by being. 

“Hi, doll. Hi.” Wooyoung kisses him again quickly, as if he didn’t have any time in the world to do it and San would blow away if he didn’t keep him in his arms. 

“Hi, Woo.” San smiles, feels it start in his eyes and end somewhere in a continuum, his face stretching and he feels like his heart is going to burst out of its seams as he lightly brushes a thumb over Wooyoung’s honeyed cheek.

“Did I keep you long?” He asks, pulling back from San but keeping their hands linked, leading him to the passenger side of the car. 

“Not at all. Thank you for coming for me.” 

“Of course.”

Wooyoung shuts the door after he gets in, tireless and so ready to go, not giving San a chance to look at him again, before he rushes around the front of the car and gets in, the car lightly bouncing and giving way to his thrill.

“I was thinking…” Wooyoung runs a hand through his black hair, a Montreal Expos band and silver rings decorating his wrist and fingers, the tip of his tattoo peeking from the sleeve of his jean jacket as it rides up, “we go on and meet the rest at Double Oh Seven. And then take the night from there. Just us. Sound good?”

San nods, and Wooyoung gets the car started again, purring and cracking the sky apart.

“Sounds very good.” 

Driving down Freeway 5 seemed to be one of Wooyoung’s favorite things to do with San, especially with the windows down and _especially_ when Radiohead’s b sides filled the moon’s hollow ears and quieted down the street surrounding them. There was something special about the wind breaking through his hair, about listening to Wooyoung’s voice trumpet over his songs, about leaning out the window and letting the clouds take you over the sea.

There was something special about Wooyoung.

And as he shuts his eyes, imagines the doldrums through his clothes as ivory mångata kisses his skin, imagines the seashells quaking at the bottom of Smith’s Cove and coalescing with the rattling stars above him, he thinks that Jung Wooyoung was no less than the universe, sees waterfalls and blooming cherry blossoms in him, and he thinks it should be impossible for someone to have him wrapped around his finger so easily like that. 

He was the stuff of imagination. This is exactly what perfect dreams were about. 

San has learned to fall in love with little moments like this, to fall in love with seeing his friends' faces, to fall in love with the smell of the tide and to fall in love with everything he had yet to be, all in their tiny, idle town.

And as he thought of Wooyoung, as he listened to the wind howl against his ears and curve against the outside of his car, as they sped down empty highways into everywhere and nowhere, he was the final nail on the coffin. 

He was _so_ in love.


	2. i can't say that

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! before you read please, please look:
> 
> TW // smoking
> 
> there are a few brief mentions of smoking and cigarettes within this au. it does not play a big part, but it is representative of wooyoung going back to something he tried to quit in more ways than one.
> 
> END OF TW
> 
> i will put exclamation points before it, because i know that it serves as a trigger to someone reading this and i respect that. i don’t care if it ruins the aesthetic of the text or anything. the last thing i want is to make anyone feel uncomfortable when reading my stuff, so please look out for the bold “!!!” that i’ll put before and after where it’s mentioned if you’re still interested in this au. thank you and please stay safe!! ^-^

The summer of 1993 was probably the hottest one, yet. 

The streets were glossed with heatwaves once noon hit, and the tap water even tasted like hot air, the sun relentless in its endless bout of trying to melt everything beneath its fingers. San thought it did a pretty good job with the way he was feeling today, wanting nothing more than to hide away in the cool tides the waves were bringing, or beneath the vent in his bedroom before he boiled in the humidity of this particular Saturday afternoon. 

San’s favorite thing to do recently was to blast music on his new Walkman, being all he could talk about since he saved up enough to get it. Because he was too afraid of how heavy stereos were (stuff about  _ achy shoulders at such a young age  _ and  _ I don’t know how the kids do it _ ), he settled on getting one before he changed his mind.

It was nice, listening to Fountains of Wayne under the sun’s embrace while the waves tackled the tide and crashed against the shoreline. San felt good, Wooyoung even better, and while they waited for their friends to get back to them from the umbrella stand, he couldn’t help but stare at him.

The summer of 1993 was when Wooyoung knew San was everything  _ he'd _ ever wanted.

And he sits on the golden dunes of sand beneath him, taking up the entire beach in the way his eyes wandered over the offing that separated the cerulean sky from the navy sea, as the sun highlights him in a lemonade wash while he soaks up the clouds above him. He thinks San was perfect. 

He had always been perfect, with his warm eyes that gleamed like the morning sun rising over the peak of Kamet and his smile that warmed like hot chocolate to cold fingers. He was always so  _ wonderful. _

Wooyoung can’t remember catching any flaws in him, doesn’t know how he got so lucky.

San blinks into the frothy waves as they struggle to reach for their sandy feet, lashes brushing as softly as the current, and he catches Wooyoung peering into him. The sun had caused a dusty peach to cloud his cheeks, yet, he still caught the blush in his ears and under his skin as San smiles and looks away from him.

“What’s got your tongue?” San asks, and Wooyoung shakes his head, his lips cracking into a grin of crescent moons as he looks at him.

“I don’t have anything to say. I just like looking at you.”

“Well…” San feels himself burning up, his heart replacing the sun in the way his blood was steaming, Wooyoung seemingly always knowing exactly how to twist him around his fingers, play with him in his hands and twirl him over his wrists. “Quit it, would you?”

Wooyoung’s moon grows, feeling it spill into his eyes as he leans over to San, an arm around his waist. He pulls San closer to him, pressing a kiss to his cheek, skin searing against his lips. 

San’s heart rushes, and—

It trips when he looks past Wooyoung to see him, white swim trunks striking against his golden skin, nearly radiating as he speaks to his friends, smile like shards of glass and his eyes like knives. He feels himself pitfall once they make eye contact, and he hopes to everything above him that he doesn’t come near them.

He could practically feel the hate bouncing off of him as the world stops, the waves silent while he stares at them, rubicund lips scowling and ugly.

Wooyoung follows San’s gaze, watches as his eyebrows come together and his body runs cold, before catching sight of him redo.

He quickly pulls away from San just then, and it was here when he wished, despite everything he was granted, that things were different. Only a little.

“Fucking hate that guy,” Wooyoung says, shaking his head and drawing shapes in the dry sand beneath him as he brings his legs up to his chest, as if to protect himself from anything that could be thrown at him. “Of course he showed up.”

San only swallows, looks down again and hopes that focusing on Wooyoung’s shapes would push him out of his head. He didn’t know how he could have a good time if the looming threat of him would be over the two of them the whole time.

“We only have a few months. Then we could get away without worrying.” San tells him, opting for resting his head on Wooyoung’s bare shoulder, watching the sand balance on his own legs and rain his crimson swim trunks, their shared end goal of moving cities together right at his nose.

“I know, doll. I won’t let him do anything to you. I’ll protect us.” Wooyoung says softly, and in that moment of him slipping his pinky in San’s, gently hooking as to hold on to him so intimately in the shadows, he believes in him.

Jung Wooyoung was very easy to believe in. 

San feels at ease for now, Wooyoung demulcent as he presses another quick kiss to San’s hair, hot and salty, yet, reminding him of nighttime and hope.

“I kind of wanna get slushies, but I don’t want Jongho and Seonghwa to—”

Speak of the devil, and he will appear.

“Hey, guys. Sorry for the wait. You know Junhee is here?” Seonghwa is the first to break the silence, an orange umbrella in his arms as he sticks it into the sand right behind them, Jongho with one hand in the pocket of his swim trunks, the other holding a brand new yo-yo to play with as soon as possible.

San swallows and nods. “Yeah. We know.”

“If he tries anything, I’ll deck him,” Jongho says, reminding San of home in the way diamonds fell from his smile, sympathetic and protective and too valuable for San to really believe he deserved from him. “Were you talking about slushies?” 

“Y-yeah. I think the new mango one is out now. I’ll go grab us some.” San says, getting up out of the warmth of his friends, before Seonghwa pauses in the middle of pulling a beach towel from his bag to put on the sand. 

He had a thing about getting sand in weird places and nobody questioned it.

“I’ll go with you.” He says quickly, eyes following San as he brushed sand from his legs. “H-help you carry them.”

San looks at him, watches how the fading sunlight lights his pale skin and makes him glow in gold, how his blonde hair looks white in the light and how he looked like he belonged on the beach. San could picture him sitting at the lifeguard tower near the umbrella stand, coming out from the mouth of the sea with saltwater glistening off of him like dazzling stars.

He’d always thought Seonghwa was pretty.

And somehow, though he really shouldn’t, considering he spent nearly every day this summer with him, there was always something in the back of his chest that felt like longing when he was with him. They had been friends for a while, but San always felt like he could never spend enough time with him. 

A reflective glint from the waves beside him takes him out of his head and settles him back on the sand, the warm summer sun dragging over his legs and cradling the skin of his back as he nods, and makes it more of a point to get the slushies. 

The sun was dying now, yet it was still hotter than ever.

“Y-yeah.” San nods with a smile. “Okay.” 

The 7/11 was right across the street, fitting nicely on the corner of Main Street as it was decked out in Hawaiian, surfy themes, images of surfboards and leis and big cartoon waves decorating building signs. It really made this part of town look completely different to what San was used to back in his old neighborhood.

Few cars littered the gas stations once San and Seonghwa reached, and once Weezer circled around his head and occupied the rest of his thoughts, when the scent of cheap floor cleaner and donuts had replaced his pineapple sunscreen and the urge for a cold slushie increased tenfold, San decided that the summer of 1993 might just be the best one yet.

He worries about Jongho and Wooyoung back on the beach, and his eyebrows pinch.

“What are you thinking about, Sannie?” Seonghwa asks him, his smile white and reassuring like blooming tulips in April as he waves to the cashier, just to be polite.

San wanted to fall into it, wanting to run with it into thunderstorms to clear his troubles away because Park Seonghwa was exactly that — inner peace and how the sun rises at dawn on his darkest days.

“Nothing, really. Just...I hope Junhee doesn’t mess with Jongho and Wooyoung.” San admits, his heart casting grey shadows over his mind at the thought.

And he knew it was a slim chance, but there was something about the looming possibility that was ever so present, that scared him.

“I’m sure they’ll be okay. Junhee’s an asshole, but Jongho could be worse.” Seonghwa tells him, leading him straight to the slushie maker and feeling his mouth water at the taste of a blue raspberry one.

It was hotter outside than he realized.

“I know. I just wish he’d leave us alone.” San suddenly has no appetite anymore, peering into one of the empty slushie cups in his hands as Seonghwa fills one for Jongho first, finding his thoughts scattered and messed as if he’d spilled them out from his head and he needed to mop them up.

“He’s been bothering you guys as of late?” He asks, and San wonders what would happen if he told him yes.

He wanted to know what would happen, if Seonghwa would rescue him as he builds himself up to, if he told him yes. And he knew he had Wooyoung, he knew they had each other if things ever went wrong again, but there was a part of him that wanted to peel back the stable and dependable Seonghwa to see if he’d lose himself for him.

For the two of them. 

San feels weird.

He blinks, trying to get rid of his imagination while giving Seonghwa an answer.

“Not recently.” He tells him, filling up his own slushie cup with the mango flavor, and then filling another with the same.

Seonghwa holds the slushies in his hands, his fingers tapping lightly on them to keep them from getting too cold. San watches as he looks at him, brown eyes beaming as they flicked across his own, searching for a lie. Seonghwa was good at that — knowing San more than he knew himself, knowing more than San really was comfortable with.

He didn’t like being so transparent all the time. But there was a comfort in knowing that, too. It was strange, a contradiction within itself that San knew all too well.

He blushes suddenly, and blames it on the summer blaze as he looks at his sandals.

It’s the heat, it’s the heat, _ it’s the heat. _

“If you say so. Promise me you’ll tell me if you ever need out?” Seonghwa asks, and San sees him drum his fingers on the slushie cup and he wants to tell him to just drop the subject, but he can’t find it within himself to think about much else.

Seonghwa was putting the world on pause for him, just for him to promise he would be okay. Words wouldn’t mean much, but he was making it seem like it would fall heavily on his shoulders, had he said no. He was uncomfortable, San knew just how cold these cups could get, yet, he was waiting for him to ensure he was alright before they did anything else.

In so many ways, Seonghwa reminded him of Wooyoung.

He would do the exact same thing for him if he was here.

San finally nods, looking back up at Seonghwa with a soft smile that he knew he could tell was forced, because his promises were almost always faulty and weathered and they had irreparable holes in it that he could never seem to fix, no matter how much cement and glue and tape he patches them with. But Seonghwa doesn’t say anything, instead grins and leads San to the cashier and grabs a package of Gubbaloo under the counter while he runs up his slushies.

San doesn’t stare at Seonghwa as much as he expected to. 

**!!!**

He swallows, trapped in a one-sided awkwardness that Seonghwa has silently backed him up into as he eyes the cigarettes beside the teen magazines by the door. Wooyoung’s old favorites were sold out, save for the menthols that he didn’t like.

And San had been so proud of him for not picking one up since they began to date. It didn’t even take much effort to convince him, he just stopped because he asked. San didn’t like to think that Wooyoung would smoke on his porch or at the park or the beach when he wasn’t around. 

**!!!**

His promises weren’t faulty, not like San’s. A stable foundation in how he spoke, something San could lean on whenever it was built up.

He liked that about Wooyoung.

They meet their friends at the beach, San walking a little bit slower than Seonghwa just to give them distance. He couldn’t put a finger on it, why he was so uncomfortable, yet more than himself around him. They were weird together, but fit. San was lucky to have him for a friend. 

For a friend.

He smiles for Wooyoung when he gets to him, but it doesn’t feel as bright as it looked. 


	3. let's only see good things

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello college do be kicking my ass but here is the rest of the au
> 
> i hope u guys like it!! i'm planning on doing another ws rivals to lovers and then maybe rewriting one of my old fics?? so if ur into that pls stay tuned! ^-^
> 
> enjoy!!

Wooyoung always hated spring. 

Everything was always so wet, and the air was heavy with humidity that a city near the tropics gifted. He could barely spend ten minutes outside without feeling sticky. 

He did, however, love the budding flowers that grew in front of Mingi’s mailbox during the heart of April, but that was about it. He would pick them and give them to San, sometimes to Mingi when he came over without calling first just to spend time with him, as an apology gift as he stood, sheepish and sticky on his doorstep.

And Mingi took them every time, always had the door open for him when he did with a heart-shaped smile that made Wooyoung happier for the time being.

His house always felt like a different paradise every time Wooyoung came over.

Last week, it was an island, where the rays of the sun had been soaked up by the clouds above them, where the wind blew through his hair more, where he felt like he could do anything as long as he had Mingi, as they talked on his roof in the blazing heat and threw couch cushions at each other in his living room. 

Tonight, it felt like a fortress, protecting him from everything as Mingi was in the kitchen and cooking for the two of them, where nobody but them had the key to stay here, where they were protected by the stars and covered in daisies. 

And still, he felt like he could do anything, as long as he had Mingi.

He was his best friend in the entire world, a midnight sun on a moonless night, in the way he was so delicate with people, so loving and inviting and he didn’t even know it. Wooyoung would always find peace within Mingi when they would sit down and talk, when they would go out and explore the world once the sky bled violets and navies above them, when they would argue over something minuscule and silently apologize through tight hugs and smiles. 

Mingi had always been in love with the most beautiful things; flowers and stars and waterfalls. And you wouldn’t know unless you got to know him, as he left intimidating first impressions sometimes. Wooyoung felt good to be in on Mingi’s secret, even if it was something he never hid.

He was Wooyoung’s very best friend. He couldn’t ask for anyone else. 

“Woo, do you mind getting some plates?” Mingi asks, his broad voice smothering like nighttime fog as he stirs whatever was in the saucepan in front of him, his eyebrows together as the heat warms his face and blows aromas through the kitchen.

“Yeah. Thanks for cooking.” Wooyoung tells him, and Mingi smiles, though Wooyoung couldn’t see it.

“No need. I hope you like this, I was craving it.” 

“If you made it, then yeah. ‘Course I will.” 

Wooyoung grabs two white glass plates, cold underneath his fingertips as he places them on the table. 

He looks out of the window above the sink, looking so empty and devoid of anything, yet, he felt drawn to it, to go outside and fill the bare spaces of the world with conversations and crazy ideas and just  _ doing  _ something. He thinks to call San after, to see if he wants to run the streets with him after midnight again. 

“I see you looking out the window.” Mingi empties the saucepan onto the plates, honey chicken as best as Mingi could have followed the recipe online. 

He’d definitely like it. 

“I wanna go outside,” Wooyoung says, voice soft as he glances outside again.

“It’s spring. You hate humidity.” 

“It wasn’t so bad today.”

Mingi makes a face, thinking.

“Well...let’s go after, then. Just us, or the group?”

Wooyoung thinks for a moment, about bothering the others just to run wild on a weekday night, and despite the dissonance in his heart, he shakes his head, feeling foreign and antipodal in such a familiar place with familiar thoughts. 

“Just us.”

“Hm. Would have thought you’d want San to come, at least.”

He doesn’t catch the look Mingi gives him.

“He’s probably sleeping. I don’t wanna wake him.” He says, and Mingi nods, forking a bite into his mouth where he stood on the island counter, Wooyoung across from him and leaning on the white marble, waiting for it to cool down more.

Mingi, not so much. He makes blowing sounds as his mouth forms an “o” shape, trying to cool it off inside his mouth, and Wooyoung smiles at him.

“Yeah, it’s…” More blowing sounds, and then chewing. “It’s almost midnight. Where...would be open for us to go?”

Wooyoung shakes his head with a shrug, telling Mingi that the possibilities were both endless and limited within their time frame. “Club. Bar. Party at Kappa Phi Delta.”

“We’re too old for all of that.”

“Mingi, we’re literally twenty-one. And that’s _literally_ your frat.”

Mingi grins, not used to going partying with Wooyoung on a Thursday night before class tomorrow, or partying in general, but he gave in easily and found, really, no problems with going, a spark of excitement running through him at doing something other than reading or watching cartoons tonight. He just hoped Wooyoung didn’t purposely forget to tell him he had class early in the morning or something. 

He was known to look out for him, more than anyone else.

Wooyoung’s eating, but it feels like wet cement in his mouth as he thinks. He suddenly feels guilty for not even checking on San, now that the conversation had wavered that way. But he knew he was okay, so there was no need, right? He was probably sleeping. That wasn’t something he had to check for. It would be worse to ask him out and wake him up, to be at a lose-lose situation regardless. 

Right?

“Jongho was talking to me about weddings today,” Mingi interrupts Wooyoung's silent conversation with himself, using his fork to push around the chicken in his plate. “Saying he wanted to get married in another country, maybe on a beach. He’s like...nineteen, talking about marriage.” 

“He’s not with anyone, is he?” Wooyoung asks, and Mingi shakes his head. 

“No. Too focused on school. Besides, he’s got all the time in the world to find someone, he’s still little.” Mingi says, and for a moment, Wooyoung feels almost like they’re Jongho’s parents, talking about him and his  _ outlandish  _ ideas for marriage at such a young age. They were barely two years older than him, anyway.

Wooyoung almost laughs at them. 

“Let him talk about his foreign beach dream wedding. Unless he doesn’t invite us. Then that’s not a dream wedding.”

Mingi grins over a mouthful of food, before shifting his weight on his legs and studying his plate, each conversation bringing more domesticity and familiarity than any of them ever really expected. His heart feels like feathers as a question comes to his head, perking up and looking at Wooyoung with bright eyes.

“Do  _ you _ wanna get married, Wooyoung?” Mingi asks him, and Wooyoung's got an image of him for a moment, silvery hair and a shy smile that reminded him of crepuscular rays in the winter, pretty. 

His chest feels almost too heavy behind his skin as, for the first time in a while, there's a block in him that makes him stay quiet for a moment. He didn’t really know. 

He has thought about marrying San. He’s thought about marrying a lot of other people, too. He’s thought about not getting married at all. He feels like he’s too young to be thinking about that, yet, it was a perfect question for someone his age.

He didn’t really know.

Wooyoung sighs through his nose, blinking into the hardwood at his thoughts that had suddenly spilled themselves out on the floor, that had made themselves known. They were louder outside of his head than in it, and as he swallows, he finds himself at a loss at their sound.

“I don’t know, Mingi,” Wooyoung tells him, shaking his head again to dismiss it as something less than, but it was a big deal.

He’s always liked the idea of being married, always liked the idea of being with someone who he loved when they were away as much as he did when they were around. Things were starting to look different, recently. Maybe he just didn’t have time to think about it now. Besides, he had a few years left before it should have scared him. 

Or maybe not. 

Maybe he didn’t really want to get married after all.

Wooyoung sighs lightly, pushing his chicken around on his plate, suddenly with a lost appetite that he had no desire to look for. Mingi’s been looking at him ever since he answered, trying to find something scribbled over his face that told of underlying issues or something he wasn’t talking about. He knows Wooyoung well enough; he wasn’t going through something, but…

He was thinking. Mingi just could not put a finger on  _ what. _

“Do  _ you?” _ Wooyoung asks, just to get the burning spotlight off of himself for a moment as he eats again.

“Yeah. I do.” Mingi said, nodding and looking at his plate.

“Think it’ll be on a beach in a foreign country?” Wooyoung asks, and Mingi smiles, and it reminds him of the way red leaves dance when autumn wind blows over them.

Autumn was a better season. Mingi was good company.

“Maybe, if that’s what we want. Yunho mentioned he wants to get married in a tree. Like one of those giant fuckin’ trees with an arch carved into it. And then he said we could write our names in the bark.” Mingi shakes his head with that same leaf dancing smile, forking another mouthful in. “He’s such a nerd.”

Wooyoung had stories to tell about San, too. He remembers San mentioning something about Hawaii and hot air balloons for getting married one day. And Wooyoung remembers being so invested, being so starry-eyed when they were dreaming about things like that, could practically feel the sun on his blooming cheeks as they floated over the country, much like the fantasies that would cloud up his head whenever he would talk about this stuff.

They dreamed a lot with each other, just like everyone else, a part of each other’s imaginations so effortlessly, it was hard to picture most anything without the other. So why didn’t he want to get married so much anymore? Was he  _ scared _ to? Was it the uncertainty of the future, the uncertainty of San, of being stuck in a sticky web of commitment he didn’t know if he wanted forever?

Wooyoung blinks, and decides tonight that he did not want to get married because he was only twenty-one, if he was ever asked again. That was a normal thing.

Nobody really thought about marriage at his age, he was just too young.

_ Right?  _


	4. i can't say that either

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beware there's implied stuff towards the end but nothing written!!

“I have a present for you.”

Wooyoung kisses San’s lips as soon as he hauls himself over his windowsill, the moonlight covering them in a protective embrace while cars silently steer past his neighborhood and it feels like they were the only two people alive tonight, as the night silenced the rest of the city.

They were the only two _really living._

San smiles into Wooyoung’s mouth as he kisses him again, slowly, as if he was trying to preserve the moment in case there was a time where he’d forget. It felt different, like hesitation and obligation, but San didn’t acknowledge it. His lips pick up sparks and flood his blood with an electric ruse, and San suddenly wants to explore the world, wants to soak in the stars while they drive down the freeway tonight, while he still has a fuse lit.

“I have a gift,” Wooyoung says again, his voice soft as to not wake anyone in the apartment but he lived alone, and San loved how careful he was, even when he didn’t need to be.

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a CD, the disc reflecting the moon pouring in through his open window. San sees sharpie written in Wooyoung’s blocky handwriting, and he smiles as butterflies dance in his chest, gently running a finger over the writing as Wooyoung closes the window behind him.

“Aw, what is this for?” 

He reads it as best as he could in the dim light of his bedside lamp.

_OUR SUMMER MIX._

_to you, doll. thank you for loving me. i’m running out of space on the cd but iloveyoualotandhopeyoulikethese!!_

“It’s a bunch of songs for us. Everyone had their own songs, you know? But this would be ours, to remind you of us. And we can’t share it or listen to it with someone else.”

That’s all it was, but it made so much sense to San that he immediately goes over to his hand-me-down boombox from Yeosang and slips the disc in, pressing a button that snaps the silence between them in half.

The Smashing Pumpkins fill the cracks in the walls, and San feels like spinning.

Wooyoung is pushed onto San’s bed by the time the beat releases that nostalgic feeling in his chest, and he wants to cry for something he hadn’t lost. They were livewires under the current of the moon, under the outlet of being able to do what they wanted under the watch of absolutely no one.

This feeling comes and goes, but Wooyoung found it flickered most when he was with San.

As he smiles lightly at him, he reaches out to gently brush his fingers over San’s cheek, wanting nothing more than to be with him forever like this. Time slows as San entrances him, looking at him as if he was the only boy in the world allowed to hear him, allowed to love him. Wooyoung feels his heart slow as San brings his hand up to hold his own, dimples imprinting his cheeks as he smiles shyly.

He was so endearing.

San reminded him a lot of summertime, when the car is moving a little too fast and the windows are down and the radio is blasting, in the way he wavers like the swelter, or settles a sense of home in his chest like the cooling waves that sweep over him at the beach. When he smiles like midsummer, when the daisies bloom just a little faster and the color on rose petals are a deeper shade of crimson, San always made things feel better, made him go out of his way to love.

Summer was for adventure, and there was nobody else who fit that narrative as he did. He thinks San is constantly changing and growing and there are many roads and freeways inside of him that he’d love to take more time to explore with the windows down while songs that make him fall in love with him play on the radio.

“Thanks, Woo. I love you.”

Oh.

There had been nothing that made Wooyoung’s heart flutter more than when San told him that. Every time, and no matter where they were, it always made the butterflies in his stomach dance when he heard it, a silent tune of transparent truths playing through his heart _every time_. 

So what gives?

It almost felt routine.

And he thinks that his butterflies might be dying, broken wings trying their best to flutter while powdered scales streaked his stomach, pretty and colorful like chalk on sidewalks. They were tired, having spent all this time flying just to do it, just because they had to, like the tigers for a circus act.

And maybe it had been an act all this time. Or maybe they decided they were done for now. Wooyoung didn't really know.

They’ve been here, they used to flourish here, but they were dying.

But he smiles anyway, leaning down to kiss him, and finally, _finally,_ they jive weakly against his ribcage, the final nudge for them to keep going.

Making out with San while their special CD plays felt better than he expected.

He hadn’t come with the intent of doing it, but San was full of surprises, and even at two in the morning, when things should be calm and the quietness of the sky should have coaxed them to sleep, San burns beneath his fingers. His lips are warm and inviting as they drag heavy across his own, heat kindling deep in his bones as fingertips loiter over his bare stomach, halos glowing behind his eyes as he looks down at Wooyoung, his fingers tangled in his hair.

And Wooyoung was sometimes terrified of getting burned one day on nights like this, that he would wander too close and let his heart char once San decided he was sick of him.

Recently, that fear was tenfold in the fact that it was most likely going to be the other way around. 

Wooyoung was trying his best to run from that, too.


	5. saying that there will only be good things from now on

“What does being in love feel like to you?”

It was a sunny day in August when he asked him this specific question. 

The sunlight bathed them in a soft lemonade light as they laid on the floor, opting for the hardwood on their backs and the threat of aching joints later, rather than spending time on their bed, like they usually did. Warmth spread over his skin and through his chest as Wooyoung lazily painted abstract shapes onto San’s shoulder with his fingers, something he loved to do and something San loved to feel.

San shifts, turning himself a bit more into Wooyoung as he thinks about the question.

Being in love felt like many things that San could not put his finger on, even if he tried. It changes, very versatile and malleable depending on the situation and the length of time. 

San still thinks that it feels like spring, when everything blooms towards the sun and a beautiful heat spreads softly over the entire world. It was in the April showers that kissed moth orchids and settled petrichor across the front lawns in the morning. Many times, it felt like the high from alcohol, where you never cared about anything else but the next drink and just how far it would take you. 

The next kiss, the next hug, the next date.

It caused San’s chest to erupt and spill stars, causing his head to fill with the thought of seeing Wooyoung again as longing made a home in his heart when he was gone. 

Love was found in almost too many things that San could think about, but instead, he shrugs and looks at the ceiling, his thoughts spreading out across the white paint and out through the window.

“I dunno. It’s...a lot.”

Wooyoung doesn’t know what that means. Or, he _did,_ but he was having a hard time relating to it.

It wasn’t that Wooyoung wasn’t in love. Of course, he was. He cared for San more than anyone else, loved to see him during his good days and picked him up when he fell, loved to kiss him and waste time with him when they had too much of it.

It was more of like...disengagement, between his heart and his head, of not being able to pinpoint exactly what it felt like and what he _should_ be feeling. Like the color grey had been slowly tinting his blood over time.

“Like what?”

“Hm…” San drums his fingers on his stomach as his eyes flicker back and forth between his ceiling fan and the corner that probably had dust bunnies in it. “Like...spring. Or...flowers. Or rain. Stuff like that. I can’t explain it but it feels like that.”

Wooyoung nods, and when San tilts his head to look at him, his eyebrows raised in slight expectancy and curiosity, he feels like he was being put on the spot, not being able to come up with something to say that followed, that justified why-

“Why do you ask, baby?”

Wooyoung sighs, and shakes his head. “Just curious. I know it means a lot of different things to different people.” He blinks and imagines Mingi, talking to him at his house eating dinner again. “Mingi once said it felt like the tides of the beach.”

“What?” San giggles, and there was something about his laugh that made Wooyoung’s grin stop as quickly as it started.

San didn’t believe him. 

He was always one to not make a big deal out of something.

Ever since they first met at that party, when Wooyoung was awkward in front of him while his friends were clumsy and chaotic with alcohol in their systems, San always remembered him. He looked back to make sure he was still with their group, he asked if he was okay when he refilled his red cup, and by the end of the night, San had kissed him and Wooyoung saved his phone number.

He was good like that.

But it had the opposite effect when Wooyoung knew San was beginning to see through him, and it was days like this when he wished he wasn't so transparent.

”Yeah. He likes the beach a lot, now.”

“The tide, huh? That’s nice.”

And their conversation switches to the next time they’d be able to see their friends again, if maybe going back to the beach was a good idea so San could see what Mingi was really talking about.

Wooyoung didn’t know if he agreed for San, or because he needed to find closure to something that didn’t need it.

~☁~

Wooyoung decided that Mingi had been right about love feeling like the tide.

It swallows things whole, gripping with its tireless fingers and sweeping everything out to sea. It was inviting, until you got too close, and you slipped and the currents dragged you by your toes until you disappeared beneath the crabs on the seafloor.

And as Wooyoung watched that day, as the tide carried seaweed out past the offing, drowning it and suffocating it until it was forgotten about, he thinks that love was not too far off.


	6. saying that you won't get hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> be careful when reading this part please!!

Jung Wooyoung was fabricated.

It took San about two years and five months for him to finally see that. He was make-believe, a beautiful story that San was lucky enough to be apart of, but evil enough to manipulate. 

Jung Wooyoung, the one who made him fall in love with being alive, made him resent the word and everything that it was made up to be lately.

Everything that _he_ made it up to be.

The air had been stale from the cold, but San couldn’t tell if it was from outside, or from his own bedroom. They were good, they were really, _really_ good, when it came to leaving tension in the air until it got so bad that it stuffed up his nose and sat heavily on his chest like a sickness. 

Neither of them could keep up, getting into fights so much that Wooyoung would leave the house with a busted lip and San a black eye, broken ceramic littering their wooden floor like the forget-me-nots that grow in the front yard by the power generator. 

And San thought they were so fucking ugly, those stupid flowers, because the only flowers he knew were sharp and cutting and they hurt him, so bad, but he couldn’t stop growing them.

He couldn’t stop growing his pretty flowers, matter how many times he's tried to stomp on them.

San knew they were bad for each other in this instance, bitter and unrelenting and horrible overtime, but he couldn’t leave. He loved Wooyoung, and Wooyoung knew it.

And it took a bit, but after another bruised lip and a sliced up hand, a broken vase painting the floor, it happened.

San and Wooyoung broke up for the first time while making a mess of their living room, making a mess of themselves, on one of the coldest nights in December either of them had ever seen.

And it shattered his ceramic heart, crushing his porcelain into a dust that he would have no problem blowing away in time.

He doesn’t know exactly when he hit the ground, but he knew that it was too hard for his brittle bones and it hurt, like his soul was filling with too much space, and it felt like he was being dribbled and he wasn’t prepared for something so bad, but he did it. 

They did it.

They broke up for the first time in December, after living with each other for exactly one year and two months.

_All couples go through fights. It was fine. They’ll get through it._

San had thought about that more times than he could count, long enough for him to memorize it down to the duration of the pauses in between and how he should shake his head for emphasis and even the eyebrow raise at the end of it. He had memorized it down to how he should say it and when, always following questions like _what happened to you two?_ and _you guys need a break or something, what the fuck is going on?_

But they got through it.

They were drawn to each other, like magnets. But the pull was nearly too strong and San was starting to push from Wooyoung with a small hatred that ground its feet in his heart and made a home in his chest. 

He loved Wooyoung, for everything he was and still wasn’t. He loved Wooyoung for giving him time and attention and taking care of him. He loved Wooyoung for giving up his bad habits and pushing San to get rid of his own.

He loved Wooyoung, even when he slashed his skin open with his screams or planted violets across his cheeks.

Pretty violets. San thought Wooyoung was still pretty, even when he was covered in violets. And he hated that. He hated thinking about that. He hated loving that.

Someone he could still inject his anger and pent up aggression into, for arguing over the dumbest things, was that same someone who he was still falling in love with every day.

He couldn’t put it into words, how much he loved to hate him.

And while he’s sitting in Seonghwa’s house again, blankly staring into the advertisement running on the television while he wiped away the blood filling the cracks in San’s chapped lips, while he wrapped up his knuckles and hid away the violets under his own skin, while he hid him from the world underneath the protection of his blankets, San thinks that maybe, there was no point in trying to put his ceramic back together again.

Maybe.

San liked to find refuge. Many times, when the world was too big and exploding and messy, he liked to hide in Wooyoung’s arms and think about their utopia, where the cities never slept and the sun hung high in the afternoons. 

Their world was always so beautiful and small, and when San shuts his eyes while Wooyoung presses kisses to his skin, he thaws in their heat like arctic sun, basks in their warm waters and imagines the future while their laughs hold the present and replace his humid cries. 

Seonghwa’s arms were a good option for when Wooyoung was exploding, his heart in pieces and his blood all over San’s hands, or maybe when San was messy and suffocating Wooyoung back home. 

San didn’t know how bad he could hurt when the one thing he needed most to feel whole was gone. 

“What’s wrong, San?” 

San felt so filthy, placing himself and his trust in someone else. But he knew Wooyoung needed a break for now, and he didn’t want to fall asleep on the couch while heartbreak courses through the pipes beneath their apartment and the ghosts of their screams haunt his nightmares. 

He didn’t want to sleep.

“It’s...it’s okay. It’s okay.” The words tumble from his lips almost too fast, as if he had been rehearsing to tell Seonghwa scripted lines to make him worry less. “It’s okay.”

And Seonghwa can see the marks and the dried blood and the way the pieces of San’s heart dance together in his hollow chest like wind chimes caught in a gust, but he doesn't say much after that.

Seonghwa’s thumb drags heavy across San’s cheek as he holds him in his own living room, much more forgiving and clean, and while the streetlamp flickers across the street behind him, he cries into his chest and lets his world, for the first time in his life, crumble from his fingertips. All that hard work had been lost so easily in one night, his hope among the dandelions that the wind carried into the mouth of the sea, to be forgotten and never to be returned.

They’ve been wading through careful waters together, hand in hand, comforting in the ruse that he still had Wooyoung by his side should things go wrong. The ocean was big, vast. You could easily get swallowed up in the currents, and San could feel it tugging at his feet the deeper he got.

It was here when he realized their days were numbered. 

Taking breaks was okay, as long as you both had the intention to come back.

San could not decide if that was a good intention or not.

~☁~

When San goes back home to get a few things to spend the night with Seonghwa when Wooyoung should have been at work, he struggles to get out of his hold as he catches him in the middle of their living room, stale with resentment while muffled love tries to sweep the hurting off of their floor, feeling himself slowly break down and soften against Wooyoung’s chest as his hands warm around his wrists. 

“I’m sorry, San. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He’s sniffling and San can’t help but cry harder. "I'm sorry, baby."

 _Crying and struggling_. 

That’s all they fucking knew how to do right.

And San would keep those sorries and double their weight by a million, to keep in his back pocket until the next time he truly needed to hear them again.


	7. i can't say that

It was different to fall in love again, with the same person but under other circumstances. 

In a perfect world, San would have fallen in love with Wooyoung and they would live unapologetically, maybe having arguments that lasted two seconds before one of them laughed and the world patched itself up and returned to normal. In a perfect world, San would not know how blood tasted as it painted Wooyoung’s skin and speckled the floor like crimson honey. 

In a perfect world, San would not feel guilty kissing Wooyoung in their favorite spot to love each other underneath a roof that spilled beautiful silvers and bright purple from the chimney, with a love too heavy to be kept within the windows.

Falling in love now was strange. 

San’s heart beat differently than how it did when he first thought of Wooyoung to be everything he’d wanted, a polyrhythmic cadence within the stale blood pumping through his veins. They used to be in tune with each other, knowing exactly what made their rhythms fall in time with each other and exactly how to do it.

But San didn’t know how to do it anymore, and he thinks it’s the most fucked up thing to know you’re stuck, but not know how to get out. 

A lot like quicksand. 

He didn’t know how to love anymore, not like how he did then. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get back to that again, and it pained him in a way that made his heart skip as it fell to the pit of his stomach, and it confirmed it in a way that told him he would never get back to how they used to be.

And that was okay. It didn’t belong in his perfect world, but it was okay.

Everything had flaws and it was fine. 

They were different now, but it was _ fine. _

Settling was okay.

It’s a Saturday night when Wooyoung is occupying his headspace, looking out of the window and finding his pretty smile in the moon and his bright eyes flickering among the stars. Wooyoung had always been one of the most beautiful things San had ever seen, in the way his cheeks sat high like full moons, the apples dusted in rose petals when he laughed, or when the sun was too hot. 

And maybe San was out here so he could see Wooyoung genuinely smile again in the space of their friends, to know what it felt like to see him laugh, to hear windchimes bustle in the afternoon breeze as he used to. 

San only agreed to come to Jackson’s party because he knew his friends would be here, anyway.

No, he knew Seonghwa would be here. So he agreed when Wooyoung asked if he wanted to come.

Wooyoung never really thought about the fact that he hoped San would say no, just so he could have a break from the constant reminder of the cracks that decorated his heart like the spider webs in the corners of the ceiling. He thinks it’s shitty for him to hang onto San by a few strands of thread in danger of snapping if Wooyoung took too big of a breath, or moved in the wrong way. 

He was so close to letting go. He couldn’t, but he was close.

He just didn’t know if he would fight for it if he did, his batteries running out the more he tried to keep up. He was okay for now.

He was okay.

“—kay, doll. You ready?”

San fights the urge to cringe at the name as he looks to his feet and smooths out his button-down, hating the way that name carried so much weight, yet sounded so hollow coming out of his mouth. It’s as if it was protocol, to treat San the same, even when they both knew they would never get back to that.

“Yeah." San nods, in assurance to himself before anything else, and Wooyoung’s eyes are cold as they look him over. "Yeah."

San used to love the way Wooyoung looked at him. As if he’d been the most expensive thing anyone could get their hands on, like he _deserved_ a stare like that. Now he wanted to get out of his line of sight as soon as his eyelids hung just the slightest bit heavier, like he was dreaming.

San knew he was probably having nightmares of how they used to be when he looks at him, silent wars tearing his head apart. 

Or, who knows. 

Maybe Wooyoung was fine and San just felt better projecting his hurting onto the version of Wooyoung he tried to hold onto.

He put much of his faith in the fact that maybe they were stuck in one of those crazy time loops that people talk about, and he hoped that someone,  _ somewhere,  _ would fix it and they would go back to normal. Going back to better times and skipping the terrible, worst parts of it.

Time was so bittersweet to him, as most people never knew how fast it trickled away until they were running out.

Wooyoung gets out of the driver’s seat, and as San fingertips graze over the door handle, he almost thinks it a good idea to wait, to see if Wooyoung would open the door for him like he used to. Maybe it would prove to the small part of him that had been withering away, that Wooyoung still loved him. It would repair him a bit, to know Wooyoung still cared about him to make sure he got out of the car okay.

**!!!**

His eyes flick to the pack of cigarettes near the console that he tried painfully hard not to notice, imagining Wooyoung lighting one alone, his lip bruised and his fingers shaking as his lungs fill. His heart falls in the worst way possible at how easy it was to think about it, to think about Wooyoung falling back into a sticky web he tried so hard to escape.

**!!!**

And when he gets closer to the front door of Jackson’s apartment without looking back for him, San quickly gets out of the car and catches up to him.

A nervous shade settles on San’s back at the thought of meeting people he didn’t know. He wasn’t mutual friends with Jackson enough to walk in here without sticking to Wooyoung’s side, but he had a plan to leave him as soon as he saw his own friends.

_Their_ own friends. Hm.

Leaving him this time wouldn’t be so bad, because he could come back to him and have nothing to apologize for this time.

The party isn’t as loud as he’d thought, but it was still enough for him to seek out the quietest part in here before the remnants of the sidechain and a hangover beat at his temples back home.

“Wooyoung! Hey!”

A boy comes up to them and he’s got soft eyes that make San smile at him behind Wooyoung. His voice is latent beneath the EDM flooding over the room, the lights in here dimmed with the number of bodies packed on the floor, pressing shadows onto their faces and reminding San of fishnets and smeared red lipstick.

San would feel claustrophobic had his focus not been on getting to the freedom within his friends.

Their friends.

“Jackson, hi. It’s been a while! I’ll still never figure out how you fit so many people in here.” 

San feels invisible, antipodal and like he didn’t belong. Wooyoung was radiant with him, while San was shadows and the uncomfortable whispers of unease that passed from ear to ear when people didn’t want you to know what they were thinking. 

But San can't be upset; this is as genuine as Wooyoung could probably get, before he hides away again.

The boy looks at him, and points casually, another grin on his face, and San colors, looking at the floor and hiding his face behind Wooyoung’s shoulder.

He wants to cry when he smells his cologne, taking him back to last summer and how eager they had been for each other. Simple things like that made his heart melt, but usually, it was in a good way. 

Tonight, he felt it soak into the ground and grow ugly tiger lilies beneath his feet in the moonlight.

“Who’s this?”

“Oh, uh…” Wooyoung’s awkward and San’s chest felt heavy at the obvious afterthought. “Jackson, this is San.” 

“Ah, your boyfriend?  _ The  _ San?” 

As if they’d both been shot, as if they both had lead filling their chest and smoke coming out of their ears, as if both of their heads split in two at the same time, their eyes dart away from him like minnows in a pond, not wanting to lie, yet, having no truth to conceal. They  _ were  _ boyfriends.

It just didn’t feel like it.

Wooyoung nods after Jackson’s smile slowly faltered, finding himself trapped between their tension and San wished he just didn’t ask so freely. He didn’t know, but still.

“Yeah. Yeah.” Wooyoung nods quickly, as if trying to convince himself more. "My San."

Jackson nods and flicks his wrist with his finger out again, like how Mingi does when he‘s got something on the tip of his tongue that needs coaxing to get out.

San thinks he's probably trying to figure out how to word it. It's like telling a little kid Santa Claus isn't real, trying not to damage feelings so fragile, even though it shouldn't take this much effort.

“Woo talks a lot about you. It’s always been SanandWooyoung, you know? You’re never apart.” Jackson says it like it’s the most beautiful thing in the world, and San swallows down the lump of guilt in his throat because it really should be, but it causes the knives in his back to twist in his skin and he wants to leave.

His tongue feels like acid as he tries to smile, his eyebrows moving to try and emphasize the empty outline of his mouth. He’s practiced trying to look genuine in the mirror once, and when Jackson’s grin grows, he thinks it paid off. 

Sometimes it felt like just San, or just Wooyoung. 

They were both in completely separate dimensions from each other, with the same grass under their feet and the same wind blowing through their hair and kissing their warmed skin. San was alone, feeling abandoned in the way that he could feel Wooyoung’s ghost lingering, but he wasn’t ever with him, even when they were together. He could hear his giggles and his voice that reminded him of the blooming roses in his mother’s garden, he could feel his matchstick touches that ignited fireworks in his chest and replaced his skin with red phosphorus.

He could feel the love that remained dormant in his chest and needed to be put to use. 

He just didn’t know how to use it again, not like this.

Sometimes it felt like if he just pushed hard enough through their invisible walls, time would warp and take him back to a better day, when he could see Wooyoung’s heart beaming through his smile, to when he could really touch him and know that he was still there.

And he still was, sure. But San would much rather have him whole than his lingering shadow, just out of reach.

It hasn’t felt like SanandWooyoung for a while. 

San longed for them as if they were one person he was missing, as they were now two damaged hearts clawing their way out of a whole that begged to be mended.

“Yeah.” He nods, and smiles, while Wooyoung reaches for San’s hand, his skin cold as his blood curdles. “That’s nice.”

It’s all he can really say. 

The idea of being one was nice. The idea of being in love with him again was nice.

The reality was, things would never be the same, and that wasn't as nice to think about. 


	8. i can't lie like that

San listens to Wooyoung’s CD when he is out of their apartment for the night.

He said he was going out with friends, or maybe to another party. San didn’t know. He didn’t like to ask. But he thought that being alone in their apartment would be good for him.

It was almost criminal, how Wooyoung was not around most of the time, as if San was something he _needed_ to get back to, but he couldn't help but procrastinate. And San was constantly pining after him, lighting up when he came home in the early morning with booze and tobacco heavy on his tongue, sloppy and different but better than the cautious Jung Wooyoung that spent every moment with him walking on eggshells, bleeding into his skin.

And as terrible as it was, San almost wishes he could have Wooyoung throwing glass at him, almost wishes to see Wooyoung in a fiery rage with lightning behind his eyes and thunder in his throat during another fight, because then he would see how he really felt and he would understand.

San can’t see how Wooyoung feels anymore, can’t explain it and can’t understand what makes him look at him like he  _ had  _ to.

It was as if the air had been toxic, poisoned with their lingering resentment and the sound of crushing glass hearts under the soles of their shoes echoing in the corners of their bedroom, untuned acoustic strings over the pretty melodies they’d spent so much time creating together. 

San felt desolate and incomplete, as he laid in his bed while the dim lamp flickers, Mercury Rev settling in bed beside him.

He’s tried to pass the time by creating imaginary constellations in the ceiling as he listens to the songs that he’s come to love, maybe hate if he thought about them for too long. His heart sits heavy in his chest as he remembers their days of riding in Wooyoung’s Lincoln, of watching the stars on the roof and smiling at the real constellations that were much more beautiful than the ones San makes. He remembers the beach and how that summer felt endless, how Wooyoung felt infinite as the cold waves settled over the shore and they were watching the moon with their friends once the sand was empty and the sky was full.

He then remembers that Wooyoung said he sees the stars behind his eyes in the morning and he feels sick, turning away from the ceiling and shutting his eyes.

A tear slips down his temple and splotches his pillow like a drop of ink on white copy paper, tainting their happy place that they’ve spent so much time perfecting. 

This stupid fucking bed.

San wanted to throw it out the window.

And in his bought of crying into his hands, turned on his side and curled into himself to protect the rest of his broken heart from Wooyoung’s vanishing presence within his sheets, he thinks there is nothing worse than falling out of love after trying so hard to make it work. 

There is nothing worse than trying to keep up in a race you knew you were going to lose.

He felt like he was trying to keep his flowers from wilting, but they were so close to dying, soggy, curled stems and rotten brown leaves trying to hold on. 

They were dying right in front of him and he couldn’t save them.

Things change, he knew. Nothing really stayed the same, and nothing really lasted forever. 

He just didn’t think he and Wooyoung would be part of those things.


	9. it's okay, come on

It’s warm out, when they’re lying in the shiny topaz of the afternoon sun, autumn breeze kissing their skin and the clouds softly lay over them like aurora.

San’s head is resting on Wooyoung’s chest, and he feels so open, yet caged, and if he tried to touch the bars, they’d be like cactus spines in his flesh. But no matter how bad they fought, how hard he made Wooyoung cry until he was breathing blood, how far apart Wooyoung tore him until he was separating his soul and spirit, he couldn’t help but hold onto the bars. 

He couldn’t help but hold onto Wooyoung.

His fingertips feel rough and uncomfortable as they drag across his shoulder, letting the sun warm them and San has his eyes shut to imagine the rays burning away the memory of the first time Wooyoung touched him so tenderly like this that it made him feel beautiful.

He shifts his shoulder once his skin feels itchy, and he is relieved when Wooyoung stops. He’s lucky they know each other well enough, but it’s a curse for them to know they aren’t happy together.

Not anymore, like they used to be.

Wooyoung sighs through his nose, rustling the autumn leaves around them and making the clouds shake, just for them to feel like they weren’t alone with each other.

“Talk to me,” San tells him, but he really wished he didn’t.

It was just out of habit. They’ve spent so much time spilling their minds into each other’s empty ears, that it felt almost out of place not to ask.

“I’m just...what made us like this? How did we get so unhappy?” 

Wooyoung’s voice is watery and thin, and San’s eyes suddenly swell with tears, and even in the sunlight, as they lay in the orange and red of their backyard floor among the leaves, he can’t help but feel cold pressed against him while the wind blows something familiar around them.

San wants to cry, to break down and show Wooyoung his vulnerability in hopes that maybe that was what they needed to fix things. Maybe he just needed to show Wooyoung that he still had a little bit of his heart left, and that would convince him that they were still perfect for each other and still supposed to be together.

Instead, he lets his tears finally spill, crying silently while seeing his utopia burn in front of him, letting each other speak while silent for a moment, trying to think of what to say.

Really, what was there to say?

Wooyoung sighs through his nose and looks at the sky, a hushed powder blue while they’re bathed in a lemon light, almost tempted to look directly at the sun. He felt so worn, as if there was a leak in his fuel tank and he was slowly draining out. 

It was so much _work_ , keeping two hearts afloat when yours was struggling to survive itself.

“We just…We just need work, is all. All couples...need work.” San tries, and Wooyoung knew he was lying through his teeth and he felt so terrible being caught up in it, knowing that they weren’t working.

Every day was another chip in their foundation, like a pick to ice, constant and relentless and annoying. They would break, eventually. And San doesn’t know when, but he’s stuck in the anticipation that comes right before the drop on a rollercoaster, or the fear you have of a plane crashing once the turbulence got to be a little too much.

But yes. They just needed work. San felt the desire to put forth more effort slipping through his fingers, but he would try for them both. At least they acknowledged it.

“Yeah. You’re right. We just...we’ll be okay.”

San catches his bottom lip in between his teeth to try and stop crying over something that didn’t deserve it. His words sounded thin, almost like he wouldn’t hear them if he breathed too loudly. Wooyoung tightens his grip over San’s shoulders and suddenly the grass feels like sandpaper scraping over his sensitive skin and the urge to cry is creeping up on him again. 

He hides half of his face in Wooyoung’s chest and focuses on the blue forget-me-nots by the power generator while listening out for Wooyoung’s heartbeat.

One, two...three, four, five...six.

It was different.

He felt like he was running on a path that led to nowhere, and Wooyoung was only a few feet ahead but he couldn’t keep up, no matter how fast he tried to run for him. 

They were losing each other and San couldn’t figure out why.

He couldn’t figure out why when he showered, when he did the last of his homework, when he covered himself with a blanket and thought of his touches, or when he dreamt of him in his waking dusk.

He couldn’t figure him out. 

He was becoming a puzzle to him. San just could _not_ solve him.


	10. when i say 1, 2, 3, forget it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> beware there’s a little more profanity in here!!

“Don’t leave. Come on, San. Don’t do this to me, doll.” 

To think this day would come as quickly as it did put San off in everything he’s been doing for the past few days. It was like knowing you had a presentation at the end of week, but no amount of practice or flashcards could help you at all. 

You were helpless.

And San _did_ practice, but he thinks that’s the worst part of it.

He spent countless times in the mirror trying to ignore how bloodshot his eyes were, trying to ignore the dark circles and the paleness that took to his cheeks, feeling sicker the more time passed. He couldn’t stand the way he felt hollow, like he would blow away if the wind picked up and disappear past the umbra of the universe before he even got a chance to get out of it.

And no matter how many times he’s rehearsed, how many times he’s come up with different ways to tell him, how many times he’s had to breathe to make sure his heart was still beating despite it feeling completely ruined, he doesn’t think anything could have prepared him for it.

Nothing could have prepared to see the heartbreak falling from Wooyoung’s eyes, every memory of dark nights and beautiful mornings of waking up together, every instance of thinking Woo was too good for him, _still is_ too good for him, yet how much better he deserved himself.

He thinks the universe is completely fucked, putting him in a position like this, letting him build up his confidence only to be broken down by just the way he was looking at him today.

San wipes his cheeks swiftly, and he feels so ugly and vulnerable and he hates Wooyoung the more he wants to love him. They were bad for each other, San knew it all too well. 

He was so damaged, San the reason for his cuts and bruises and bandages loosely holding him together. 

And San doesn’t know who the _hell_ is hurting more.

He shakes his head, his heart swelling as the overwhelming urge to go back to last year, when he was so in love with him it was nearly impossible to think about being apart. They were so _in love_ back then, needing each other without relying, and wanting without desiring. 

Their biggest worry was that _fucking Junhee._

And when San thinks about it, what really happened? 

Maybe there was some undiscovered disease in the air that made Wooyoung fall out of love with him. Some hidden anger in his heart that made San hate him. The memories of their fights hung heavy in their living room, flickering within the ceiling lights and whispering to each other underneath the dining table, stacking on San’s shoulders like bricks as their screams echoed inside of his favorite memories of this place, making him wince.

“I c-can’t, Wooyoung. You know that I…you know that.” 

San can’t look at him, his chest housing cement, almost too heavy to bear as he hugs himself, the more he stares into him, the more he allows for San to remember.

He’s going to be so hard to forget.

Wooyoung swallows thickly, and San feels his blood run cold, used to it by now but never expecting the icy blast. He reaches out to San’s hand, and his heart melts at the way he holds his fingers so delicately, like how he used to lead him into Double-Oh-Seven once the night felt infinite, like how he used to when they were underneath white blankets and soaking each other in while the stars settled over their roof. 

And the remembrance of the words _used to_ doesn’t sit right with him at all.

He doesn’t know if it would ever sit right with him again.

“Baby, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You don’t hate me, do you?” Wooyoung asks, guiltily and they both knew exactly where it stemmed from.

San is shaking, trying to pull his hand away but Wooyoung was like nicotine, addictive in every way and the more San tries to get away from him the more he’s taking him over. He shakes his head, tears hot and sticky as they drip off his chin, messing up their filthy floor further. He can barely breathe, and Wooyoung looks terribly beaten down and San feels convicted, as if he had his blood on his hands again.

He feels so sorry. 

And he knows he shouldn’t but he can’t help but feel like he killed someone. That person inside Wooyoung was half dead and bruised and San had the knives in his hands, the guns in his holsters and the cuts on his knuckles.

“Woo, we treat each other like _shit.”_

“You—”

“It’s not good, we’re—”

“Please, _please_!” Wooyoung shouts that last bit so loudly, it makes birds frenzy from trees and splits apart the sky, and San is stuck in spider webs again as his voice takes him back to December, too afraid to move in fear but wanting to get out. This time, Wooyoung wasn’t angry. He was desperate. San thinks he’d prefer it if it were the other way around. “Do you?”

San shuts his eyes, shaking his head again and trying to calm himself down. Even as Wooyoung is crying in front of him, slowly breaking down because of him, he felt like he was caught in a snowstorm. Frigid and empty and cold, trying to hold on to something that was not there for him, after trying to get used to the ice and the numbness that tolerance brought.

Tolerance that’s run out.

That’s exactly what it felt like to break up with Jung Wooyoung. 

“You know I don’t. We don’t love each other, Woo. We’re not good for each other—”

“That’s a fucking lie. You know it’s a lie.” Wooyoung’s eyebrows knit together again and he hides his face behind his hand, San watching his shoulders shake and he can’t look at him without feeling his own tears running down his face. "We just...w-we need work, San."

He presses his back into the wall he’d been leaning on, feeling feeble and so incredibly dumb for crying in front of him when he promised himself he wouldn’t. He was tearing himself away from someone who he planned his future with, who loved him like every day was shorter and made him wish upon the shooting stars that sometimes passed overhead. 

He should have expected this.

And he feels a slight resentment in his chest when he remembers how lovely the nights slowed in this living room, how they would come home from parties and dance to the rhythm of their hearts in the middle of the floor, and then fall onto the couch while soft giggles pressed themselves in the couch cushions for them to remember on rainy days.

San would rather not think about what led them here, crying and struggling for each other in the middle of their living room.

“I don’t know what to do. Tell me what to do, please, _please.”_

Wooyoung’s voice is worn and shredded, and San could practically feel his throat tighten in the way that Wooyoung’s was, wiping his face again and becoming irritated with himself that he couldn’t pull it together. 

He seemed to fail himself more times than he wanted to recently.

“We treat each other like shit, Wooyoung. We…” It’s stuck in his throat and he watches Wooyoung’s tears fall, glistening like diamonds as they cruise down the back of his hand. “We should have broken up for good back in December.”

Hearing those words makes him feel like electricity, but not the kind that he used to feel beside Wooyoung. It was the kind that was relentless and annoying, shaking you to your core until you’ve had enough, yet, it never stopped. Nothing could ever put him to rest, but he thinks he deserves it for being so shitty to Wooyoung.

Wooyoung never really did anything wrong. He just stopped loving him, and San caught on. There’s nothing wrong with that.

Wooyoung suddenly hits the back of their — his? — couch, and it sounds like muffled gunshots as they take San back to reality, back to the fact that he needed to face it. Wooyoung was trying to speak, trying to find his voice in his throat. He was choked up. He knew he needed this, that they needed to get away from each other.

So why did it feel this bad? Was it because San got to it first, completed the task they’ve been stuck on after all this time of trying to figure it out for himself?

“We...We fell out of love. We were...d-disconnected, th-that’s…” San shakes his head, trying to find a way to sugarcoat it, to make himself feel better as his world slowly begins to burn around him once more, knowing the ash would cover and bury him had he not tried to get out.

It was here when he realized just how selfish he truly could be. 

“That’s all it was,” San says. “That’s...all it was, Woo.”

“How did you know?” Wooyoung sniffles and it makes San’s ears hurt. “That we did?”

He shrugs, shaking his head and looking at the floor, as if trying to tell Wooyoung how obvious it was. 

He knew when Wooyoung stopped singing to the radio as much when they drove down the freeway towards their favorite spot. He knew when Wooyoung began to look away from him whenever they talked about the future, whenever they sat in the car in the parking lot of Dean’s and sipped milkshakes just to pass the time. He knew when his touches began to lighten up, and when he asked about what it really felt like to be in love.

He’s known. He was just too scared to sever the threads.

“We could still work, baby. Tell me what to do. I’ll do it. I’ll do anything.” 

Wooyoung is pleading for a love that was fizzing out right in front of him, like burning embers that had been doused in water. There might be something left, but there was no way to salvage it, and he wants to throw up his dead butterflies all over the hardwood floor.

“...Then let me give you this in return. You don’t love me, Woo, and...I get it.” San feels the urge to cry again, his words translating into the fact that he was completely worthless to him, had been for a while.

The sun begins to set outside, blaring a warm ginger over the floor of their living room, and as it bleeds over the toes of San’s dirty white shoes, he thinks that it was the moment of clarity he needed. There was something about how pure and new that light was, how it started over and began again, that made him think that it was okay to do the same. 

He swallows and takes a breath, his throat coated in heartbreak as he wipes his face again, a heat of supernovas beneath his cheeks from the exhaustion of trying not to burst in their spaces.

“Let me...give you a life where I am not in it. I would give anything…” And San sees Wooyoung shake his head as a tear ribbons over his red cheek. This fucking sucked and his tongue felt like it was covered in spikes as he spoke. “I would give anything for you to fall in love again. Just with the right person.”

Wooyoung steps closer to San, and for the first time, he feels uncomfortable. Maybe it was because he was so used to the magnetic pull of him whenever he got close, and it was strange that it wasn't there anymore. Maybe he was so used to the expectation of soft kisses and light touches over his skin when Wooyoung got close, and it was strange to not get them.

Maybe he was so used to being Wooyoung’s, that the fact that they were not together anymore made him uncomfortable.

They weren’t together anymore.

They _weren’t._

San’s heart breaks for the third time this afternoon.

“So...so what? We’re done? You’re just letting me go?” Wooyoung asks, and San wants to push him to the ground and yell at him for talking like that, for blaming him for something that wasn’t even his fault, but as the silence around them is heavy and their quiet crying replaces the laughs in the couch cushions, San realizes that he was right.

It would be best. They both knew it would be best, but Wooyoung was struggling to believe he could love someone like he loved San, while the other was struggling to keep himself from breaking apart. And San wants to get angry at Wooyoung for turning it on him.

 _He_ should be fucking asking that.

But San was never one to confront anything head-on, so he bites his tongue and tries to think clearly, as to not make this worse. He just wanted to get out of here as quickly as he could.

He wanted to leave Wooyoung as quickly as he could.

“Yes, Woooyoung.” San reaches out to him, his hands feeling like they weren’t his as he holds Wooyoung’s cheek in his hands, burning, catching a warm tear on his thumb that soaks into his empty chest and he lets go, his palm stinging. “We can’t go on pretending to love each other like how we used to. We aren’t happy...You know that.”

Wooyoung breaks eye contact with San to hide his mouth behind his hand again, and San doesn’t know which one of them is ruined more as he cries and tries to shield himself from him.

“Why does it hurt? So fucking bad?” Wooyoung asks, trying to breathe through his tears once the air around him feels too thick for his lungs to handle, and San wonders if that would be the last time he was able to feel something from such a simple gesture.

“I don't know," San tells him, swallows the lump in his throat and shakes his head. Wooyoung sniffles again but San can’t look at him this time. "Don't fucking know."

“Do you still love me?”

San swallows and shuts his eyes, resisting the chill that smothered his spine as he tried not to shake at the weight of that stupid question, letting his head fall against the wall he was leaning on and relishing in the slight sting that ran through him, focusing on something else that took away his heart's pain for a moment.

“Of course I do, Woo. I’ll probably still love you for a while. You were the best thing that’s ever happened to me, you know...? You…”

San doesn’t realize he was crying until the words that he’d meant to say were caught in his throat at the thought, of the _reality,_ that he was breaking away from him. Three years of being together, and it felt the most unfair that he knew he would never forget about him. This was not just some bad dream San didn’t expect. This wasn’t just a terrible ending to a fairytale San had found in the attic to read at the table before eating dinner.

This was real and everything hurt so much worse when you allowed your head to break with you.

“Yeah. Yeah, yeah.” Wooyoung breathes and shuts his eyes, his lashes wet and sweeping and clumped and San still thinks he was the prettiest boy he’d ever seen, even when he was written up in disaster and felt like abandonment under his fingertips.

“I tried to make it work,” San says, and for once, Wooyoung is afraid to look at him. He was too scared to see the broken remnants of himself that clung onto San’s back and hung from his shoulders, that he knew burdened him, but was too selfish to care about. “It was selfish, but I tried.”

“So, this is mutual?”

It was more of a question that would ease the guilt that was settling heavily in the pit of his stomach, and they both knew it but didn’t make any effort to bring it to the surface. San thinks about that word and doesn’t think he’ll ever have the correct definition for it.

He also thinks Jung Wooyoung fucking _sucked_.

“Is this what you want?”

“I just...I didn’t think it’d come now. I was thinking about it...for a wh-while.”

And it makes San want to get angry at him for lying to his face all this time, just as he thought. All of that talk about being in love, their friends, that dumb CD he’s got hanging out in his stereo to be replayed when the world was being torn to shreds. 

But that faint bit of truth was enough to still him for now.

He wants to push Wooyoung and scream at him for letting their relationship catch fire and explode before he really had a chance to understand what was going on, but he was okay for now.

“I know.” He looked at the floor, at the golden light that was dimming as clouds passed over the sun. “You were always a bad liar. Like that time at Yunho’s.”

A smile splits both of their faces for the first time in a while and then they are silent, trying to breathe, trying to think. 

The living room had quickly become a place where San would try his hardest not to think about, where he would try and forget the hours spent here with him and the imprint of his lips over his skin.

They always seemed perfect for each other, inseparable even at the mention of their names. Something stopped clicking, and San just wanted to see Wooyoung happier, even if that meant with someone else. He didn’t want to think about them being exes, didn’t want to think about talking about his _ex_ when it came up in conversations down the road.

What the hell did he do to deserve something like this? Is he just greedy? Did he take things for granted?

“What was it?” San outright asks him, knowing that whatever answer he got, even if it was silence, would come close to killing him. But he takes the risk anyway.

“What?” 

“What made you lose interest?”

Wooyoung shakes his head. “It wasn’t you—”

“Then what was it?”

“San, don’t do that.”

“At least tell me _that_ truth.”

Wooyoung sighs through his nose and thinks this was too much for him to really handle as San unconsciously curls his fingers in his. He didn’t know he’d have to find answers for something he had no answers to. He didn’t even know himself. 

He just knew it wasn’t anything San could have fixed.

“People just fall out of love, San.”

San makes a face and it reminds Wooyoung of touching candle flames, sharp and searing.

“That’s it? You just _fell out?”_

“Yes. That’s it.”

And San is quiet and radiating heartbreak and embarrassment from underneath his skin, Wooyoung almost feeling sorry for himself in the fact that he was the reason behind San’s hurting.

But he knew he shouldn’t feel bad for himself. He shouldn’t.

He did, but he shouldn’t.

“I’ll come back later, okay? To...to get my stuff.” San says, his voice heavy as he pulls his hand away for the last time, and Wooyoung is thankful that he dropped it but was upset in knowing he probably would never stop thinking it was his fault.

He was so tempted to ask him for more details, to see if he could run into him and change their minds.

He knew San was right for doing it. He couldn’t be upset with him. He was only mad that San beat him to it, that San was more in touch with how Wooyoung felt than he was with himself.

“Okay.” Wooyoung nods, breathing once and his lungs were heavy and the clarity that he expected had still not come.

His vision is blurry and he hates to see San’s eyes glossed like hot glass, knowing he was the reason behind it, but he nods again. 

“Okay.”


	11. erase all sad memories, smile

San hated the way his new apartment felt after spending a week in it. 

He’d asked Jongho and Hongjoong to move in with him, looking forward to having half of his friend group with him and the other half to draw toward whenever they got lonely. 

It was rough, that first week. 

There was no amount of time that they could have spent with him to truly make sure he was okay. He healed on his own, in his room with the curtains drawn, or sitting on the counter and staring into the cartoon apples on the front of his juice box.

He felt he would be okay with time. 

Time was such a shitty thing. He wished he could have sped it up after moving in, or maybe to rewind it and figure out where things went wrong between him and Wooyoung.

But after that first week, he felt his flowers begin to bud. 

He felt the sun shine a bit brighter, gradually, while his friends dragged him out to parties or pulled him into the water with them at night, while the moon sang above them and the waves crashed just like how excitement felt. An ember of a different world, his own this time, slowly kindling with every adventure he went on with them, with every piece of memory that had been chipped from his head.

Gradually, he healed, just as he thought he wouldn’t.

And some nights, he still listened to the CD Wooyoung burned for him. That was something he just couldn’t let go. It was like how people kept a note from their grandmother, or a baseball from their favorite pitcher. 

You can't let that stuff go.

Wooyoung had always been San’s favorite, and the CD was a playlist of memories and good times and long nights. At first, San could barely get through one song without switching it off, crying into his shirt and trying not to wake his friends up across the hall.

But slowly, it hurt less. 

It hurt less to listen to his favorite rock bands, it hurt less to watch the sun rise at dawn with Hongjoong on the roof when Jongho opted for sleeping in. It hurt less to go to the convenience store across the street from the beach and drink mango slushies after building sandcastles at the toe of the shore with Yunho. 

And as San found his old love for driving down the freeway with the sighs of his voice blowing through his hair and the feeling of his liberating hands swelling in his chest from their time together, he felt his flowers finally begin to grow for him.

His lovely, beautiful, forgiving flowers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew okay that's it!
> 
> thank you for reading it all the way through! it was only like 16k but still that's a lot for me too so i get it lmao
> 
> i hope that you enjoyed this!! i tried to relay a situation like this in a way that felt realistic, and i hope that my ideas weren't too far off!!
> 
> okay peace out see u soon


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